The Argument

 Actual argument my adult self had with my child self yesterday (I think I need to get out of the house 🤔)

Adult me: You REALLY need to clean this house.

Child me: Meh.

Adult me: Seriously. It's getting shameful.

Child me: Nah.

Adult me: You are approaching the 7th circle of Dirty House Hell. This level is called "You Ought To Be Ashamed Of Yourself". 

Child me: What's the next level? 

Adult me: "Call the Health Department". Seriously. Stop being so lazy. I know you don't like doing it but it needs to be done. And you know how you like a clean house. You can have pizza for dinner! 

Child me: Sigh... And chocolate? 

Adult me: Yes!

Child me: Grumble. Okayyyyy. 😒

2 hours later ....

Child me - Look! House is clean(ish)! 

Adult me: Oh I'm so proud. Now be a good girl and go ride your bike for an hour and then get another load of wood put up! 

Child me: Waaaa!!! 😩

I think I'm ready for my Child self to get to be in charge for a WHOLE DAY. 🤨

**Picture depicting big, fat, furry Adult me and cute, little, furry Child me. Ha ha ;)

Drama Queen Much?

SUCH a Drama Queen man that I have, I swear. 

Oh, you think not do you? You think I'm being snarky and exaggerative? 

Okay then, you can decide for yourself. Here's what happened: 

Recently I cleaned out a closet and decided to take two boxes of books to a our public library the next day. Being knee deep in paring down mode, I thought, "Hey! While I'm cleaning things out, I might as well get rid of a bunch of our dumb DVD's too!" 

I picked out a bunch of DVD's that we never watched or were too boring, stupid, violent or awful to ever watch again (the new 'Dune' comes to mind). I felt great about getting rid of them even if I was foisting them onto an unsuspecting public. Hey, I couldn't just throw them away, now could I? That would be wasteful. 

I put them all in a bag on the counter to take with me to town, very satisfied with my housecleaning project. Boy it felt so good to purge! 

Later,  I saw that bag innocently sitting there and thought, "Wait a minute. If the resident pack rat, also known as Butch, sees those DVD's, he'll snatch them right up and make me put them back. I better hide them in the truck so he won't see them." 

Well, when he got home later that night, I looked out the window and saw him head straight for the truck and OPEN THE TRUCK DOOR. Oh NO. The bag o' movies! He's gonna see it. Maybe he won't see it. 

He saw it. 

Absolute BELLOW from outside, "WTHECK! WHERE are these movies GOING?!!!" 

OH SHIP. 

I jogged outside and reaching for the bag, said, "Uh, they were just the stupid ones. You don't care about any of those. Just a bunch of Chick Flicks." (I was SURE that would make him drop the bag immediately.) 

But no. He snatches the bag back from me and proceeds to go through the whole entire thing, gasping and shrieking at each one, "DUNE? You got rid of Dune?!? Aliens and Cowboys? You're giving AWAY Aliens and Cowboys?? EXPENDABLES 13?? NO! these are CLASSICS! How COULD you?"  And on and on and on. FOR. EACH. MOVIE. Twenty of them.

I watched this testosterone-filled, manly man instantly transform into a Drama Queen having a royal hissy fit, complete with unroyal bad language. Which I will relate here with less of a potty mouth. 

"What in tarnation?! Put these doggone movies right back! You jackleg rumpot! Hiding them from me in the truck. Golly Christmas! I can't believe you did that. What else of mine have you gotten rid of??!! Hockeypuck and sunny beaches! Ooohhhh, is that what you've been doing all this time? Blaming my not being able to find a movie on my being old and having a bad memory while you've been giving them all away! Ohhh that's honking evil!! Treason! Heresy! It'll take me a whole week to get over that. Mother hummer! Aaahhhh!" 

And all I was doing this whole time was laughing my fool head off. I couldn't help it! He actually grew a crown on his head and sprouted a pink skirt, I kid you not. 

And for maximum effect I added, "Hey, you're lucky that your favorite movie Terror in Tiny Town wasn't in there." Snicker. 

His eyeballs popped right out of his head. "OMG! UNbelievable! I'm gonna have a anermism!" 

OMG that was funny. Poor baby. I did indeed put the movies back with a strict, high-pitched warning from Butchamina the D.Q. to NEVER EVER do that again!  And then he flounced right down to watch Dune. Bah. 

I hid the movies again the next day. 

(Endnote: In the pursuit of literary integrity and honesty, I admit that I enjoy these flamboyant, dramatic displays of his so much that I might, just might, be guilty of engineering them. Maybe.  😏)

Open and Closed

 "Open!"

"Closed!"

"Open!" 

"Closed!"

This is the sound which resonates through our home, pretty much on a daily basis.

I want the windows and doors open (all year long). He wants them closed ("You're letting all the heat out and the bugs in! Were ya born in a barn or sumfin?!").

I want the wood stove door cracked open (to get the fire going HOT, Pyro that I am). He wants it closed (something about smoke? Idk.).

I want the bedroom door to stay open during the day (so we get the light from that room). He wants it closed (so the dogs won't use our bed as their own personal trampoline and hairy nest all day long.) It's their home TOO, ya know! Tsk!

I want to leave our checking account open, in a user-friendly manner. He does not.  Hmph.

And it's not like I always want things open across the board. I can compromise.. There are things that I'd like closed that he wants open. For instance:

He wants his mouth open. I want it closed. Har har! No, really. He talks constantly. I guess it's better than a man who never talks at all. Hmmm.... nah.

He wants the toothpaste left open. Out on the counter. I do not.

He wants to leave the refrigerator door open while he's cooking. I'd like it to stay closed, thank you.

He wants to leave the chip bag open on the table ALL NIGHT LONG. I'd like it to be closed while he is still chewing. Who likes stale chips I ask you?

He wants a total Open Door policy for visitors. Ugj.

It's become a bit of a battle lately. I open, he shuts. I open, he shuts. All day. He complains. I explain. Or I'm closing things he's left open all day. I complain. He ignores me.

I swear if we had Pandora's box here, one of us would want it open and the other one would want it shut. (We'd have to open it first though to see what was in it to determine whether it stayed closed or not. Obviously.)

It's all getting a little tiresome though. What to do? What to do?

I know! I could suggest that we do things my way for a while then that would show him that my way is much better. Yeah, that's it! That will work. Because...

MY way has fresh air, lovely woodsmoke smell permeating the house, happy dogs, lots of light, peace and quiet, crisp chips and a joyful wife 'managing' our money. 

His way has stuffy air, soggy chips, sad dogs, total darkness, crusty toothpaste, cold dead fires and money sitting all alone and forlorn in our bank account feeling useless and forgotten.

What is wrong with him? Who wants to live that way?

I mean ... I guess it *could* be all in the way you look at it. I guess, from his perspective, he might think I want a smoky, freezing cold, bug-filled house, the animals totally running the place, dog hair everywhere, no visitors, and being constricted by totally uptight, unnecessary rules about closed chip bags and toothpaste caps, and having no actual cash in the bank.

I guess he could see it that way but ... then that would mean his mind was CLOSED so he just needs to OPEN that sucker right up and let all that cool, fresh air right in!! 😁

Open, open, open, open. ;)

The Blarney Stone - Adventures in Foreign Tongues

 Bonjour! Je m'appelle Alisha. Ca va? Ou est le toilet? Adios! Taco burrito enchilada! Sierra la boca! Croissant! 

Impressive, non? Oui, I am bilingual. Didn't know that did you? Yep! I am reasonably fluent in three languages - English, French and Spanish. Okay, almost fluent. Fluent-ish. I took French in school, grew up in Texas where Spanish is a second language and even though I went to Houston public schools, I came out with a pretty firm grasp on the English language, more or less. 

Four years of French in high school and college ("Non, non, non! En Francais!") enabled me to stumble my way through a vacation in stunning, gorgeous France. Thank God most of the French people spoke English, but still... I did it and I was SO proud of myself. I made darn sure I knew how to say the two most important things of all, "How much is it?" And, "Where is the bathroom?" I was all set. 

An old man sat down next to me on a park bench one day and started chattering away in French. I was able to say, "Je ne parle pas Francais. Je suis American." ("I don't speak French. I'm American.") He took one look at my pretty young self, decided he didn't care and kept chattering away. I nodded and laughed like I understood. We got along tres bien. 

Also while in France, in trying to impress my new-ish husband with my amazing linguistic abilities, I decided to tell our attractive young waitress how pretty she was. I knew the words for this simple compliment but for some reason I ended up telling her, "I take you are stupid pretty." I knew immediately I'd screwed up by the confused (and annoyed) look on her face so I decided to just ferme ma bouche, stop trying to be all continental and conversational and just eat my bete croissant. 

Another day there was a loud ruckus outside our hotel room that involved a dog and a cat. So, in trying to be helpful and obviously unaware of my overconfidence in my language ability, I ran out there and yelled, "Qu'est que c'est pas chat?  Pardon! Oui! Chien! Mais non! Pourquoi?!" (What is it not cat? Excuse me! Yes! Dog! But no! Why?") It was all I could think of in that moment of stress. Surprisingly, I was no help at all. Merde. 

Maybe fluent isn't the word. Maybe semi-fluent? I can still pick up a word or two here and there in a song or in a movie though, which always surprises me. I hadn't realized how much French vocab I'd retained. 40 years later, I can still count to 20 en Francais. Whyyyy? Hey brain! Are we hanging onto that information for a reason? Can't we free up some space up there? I don't think we're ever going back to France and won't need it and ... aww! Don't cry! Okay! Hang on to ALL the French! I'm sure we'll make it back there at some point before we die. Je suis desolee!! Sheesh. Sacre Bleu. 🙄 

And you'd think I'd know a LOT more Spanish having grown up in Houston, Texas AND having spent many a summer vacation on warm, lovely Mexican beaches. But alas, I'm not very eloquent there either. I always made sure I had my handy dandy, most important life-saving phrases with me though, "How much?" And, "Where's the bathroom?" But other than that, "Adios" and yummy food items, I was lost. 

A linguist I'm not. 

I guess the Blarney Stone course that I ordered didn't do a very good job. Oh well, I've got the accents down and I know some bad words, so it's not a total loss. 

I, in my sage wisdom, did know to pass down this rich linguistic heritage to my two boys so I made them watch Speedy Gonzales, handed them a book of Spanish vocabulary and lovingly said, "Here. Learn this. You'll need it for your first job, which you're about to have to get. Andale! Andale! Arriba! Arriba!" I so deserved the Mother of the Year Award that year, I swear. 

But. I did make sure they were fluent in one way in particular... I taught them to say, "I love you" in all three languages, and in every way possible. And really, that's all that matters anyway, right? 🥰 

C'est la vie! Bon chance! Je t'aime! Au revoir mes amies! Ooh la la!  👩‍🎨🗼